Half a lifetime ago, my steps echoed on the cobblestones of Buenos Aires. They were a lasting, solid characteristic of this beautiful city’s old quarters. Two eminent Argentine artists, a photographer and a writer, used word and image in homage to the legacies of their birthplace.
By watching closely where one steps, an enhanced perspective of nature comes into play. This allows one to notice the tiniest of flowers, delicate fungi, spider webs… and to become aware of birdsong and the perfume of nature.
Within ten years of arriving from the Orkney Isles in Scotland in 1879, the young John J. Kirkness was a master builder in Africa. His first major construction project was the iconic Raadzaal, President Paul Kruger’s ‘parliament’ building in the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek (ZAR). From humble beginnings, he built a successful enterprise, supplying his distinctive red Kirkness bricks, roofing tiles and terracotta pots, still to be seen at the Union Buildings in Pretoria and South Africa House in London.
The village of Irene south of Pretoria is where an aircraft mysteriously crashed on a farm in September 1922. Once owned by a flamboyant entrepreneur who named his farming estate after a daughter, Irene – meaning peace – it was home to the respected statesman Jan Smuts, a man of high intelligence but seemingly also one of immense contradictions.
What can one learn from a family heirloom that has been passed down the generations? Quite a lot, actually – even though this artefact is an old pair of scissors. A cryptic label written by Grandma in 1961 was the first piece of evidence on the genealogical path. The faint manufacturer’s stamp opened a further avenue leading to a small Yorkshire enterprise in Sheffield. This established the age of my heirloom: 150 years – give or take some.
In the National Gallery in London, a large painting by renowned artist Édouard Manet showing ‘The Execution of Emperor Maximillian of Mexico’, is evidently cut – in four pieces to be exact.
In his lifetime, it could not be displayed in France. He intended the artwork as a political statement against the French emperor, Napoleon III. In time, what remained of the painting, was cut into four canvasses, with other bits still missing.
Enter Leighton House in London to get a glimpse into the life of the pre-eminent Victorian artist Lord Frederick Leighton. That fascinating life included an intriguing relationship with an East End beauty, which inspired George Bernard’s Shaw’s novel ‘Pygmalion’ that was made into a play and the movie My Fair Lady.
Stone houses may look harsh and uninviting. Yet, they date back millenia – home to our early ancestors.
The ‘hearth’ inside was where they cooked; the fire generated heat for warmth, especially in cold climes. In time, the phrase ‘hearth and home’ came to embody family and the love shared among those living in the glow of the firelit room. It exuded coziness and the embracing comfort of home.
It might seem curious that a high-ranking Scottish soldier who fell in battle at Magersfontein near Kimberley during the South African War should be buried 700 kilometres away at Matjiesfontein. Perhaps it was a matter of honour for a fellow Scot, the owner of the tiny Karoo village. For the other fallen, a poignant memorial was erected on the battlefield. This brings to mind what Benjamin Franklin once said: There never was a good war, or a bad peace.
“… errors are notoriously hard to kill, but an error that ascribes to a man what was actually the work of a woman has more lives than a cat.”
This was the wry comment from Hertha Ayrton, British engineer, mathematician, physicist, inventor and activist, on learning that her friend Marie Curie’s work was credited to Curie’s husband. Why, for all she achieved by dint of hard work and a brilliant mind – and others like her – is Hertha Ayrton’s name not among the ‘Great Britons’ – like that of her compatriot Isambard Kingdom Brunel? Denial of women’s talent?